Mark Stoops: That was a very difficult loss for Kentucky

Losing has become a very familiar feeling for Kentucky over the last month and a half of this football season. Even so, their latest, a three-point defeat in Columbia, was one that Mark Stoops felt was as disappointing as any on his record.

Stoops expressed his thoughts in the opening statement of his postgame press conference following the Wildcats’ 17-14 loss at South Carolina this weekend. He knew how detrimental this was to their season and placed some portion of the blame on himself and his staff for not prepping their team in the necessary way.

“I’ve been doing this a long time in this league and at Kentucky. That’s a very difficult loss for us right there,” said Stoops. “Feel very disappointed for our players that we didn’t do a better job of putting them in a position to be successful.”

His first area of concern was for their offense. Although they outgained the Gamecocks, Kentucky mustered just their second-lowest point total of the season. Add in three turnovers, including two important ones to end the first half, as well as their share of the team’s seven penalties on the night and the fact of the matter is that they didn’t give themselves the opportunity to earn the victory by shooting themselves in the foot.

“We had numerous opportunities after getting in a hole to start the game. I thought we fought back extremely hard,” explained Stoops. “We had several opportunities in the first half – I want to say two in a row, two possessions in the first half – where we have it down there and turn it over, don’t get any points. Turn it over later.”

“I also thought, having a couple of possessions when the defense was getting the stops? We had several opportunities to extend that lead and couldn’t do anything with it,” Stoops continued. “Critical penalties, critical turnovers – you’re not going to go win. Not a very good recipe to beat anybody on the road.”

From there, Stoops was actually fairly content from the play of his defense. However, with what they gave up on South Carolina’s final touchdown drive, he knows that it wasn’t quite good enough.

“Defensively, (we) had some really good momentum shifts for awhile. Playing really good for a good portion of the game, contained it to a decent number. But it comes down to situational football,” said Stoops. “The plays on the possessions where they scored was, really, the key. To give up a second and extremely long? And then they converted on that possession, go down and score the touchdown? It was a killer because we were playing really good in stretches. But you’ve got to finish it off.”

After a 5-0 start, this was Kentucky’s fifth loss in six games to bring their record to 6-5. Of the five defeats, though, this was the one that felt like a significant gut punch to those in the bluegrass.

It was a very difficult pill to swallow but, in closing, all Stoops could do was give his commends to their opponent for finding a way to seize their opportunities in moments that Kentucky clearly didn’t.

“Tough beat, tough loss. Give them credit,” Stoops said. “We had our opportunities to extend it, just didn’t do it, and they did. They made some plays.”